CROSSING TO FREEDOM

Jailed Border Guards Merited Clemency

Along with many fair-minded Americans, we were pleased to see
President Bush grant 11th-hour commutations of sentences to Jose
Alonso Compean and Ignacio Ramos, the two border enforcement agents
who were convicted in the 2006 shooting of an unarmed Mexican drug
smuggler.

While the pair did engage in an improper coverup of their activities
on the night of the shooting, there is little question that the two
men acted as they thought best when they attempted to apprehend a
fleeing drug suspect, Osvaldo Aldrete Davila. Mr. Davila later
admitted to smuggling several hundred pounds of marijuana on the day
he was shot.

The incident sparked a national debate on U.S. immigration policy.
Many conservatives, joined by others across the political spectrum,
felt that the agents' sentences of 12 and 11 years in prison were
simply excessive in light of their initial efforts to properly
enforce the nation's immigration laws.

President Bush agreed, and has commuted their sentences. Both men are
expected to be released March 20 after serving 26 months in prison.
Certainly, the sentences meted out to the two men were
disproportionately harsh in this era of pat-on-the-wrist penalties
for white-collar criminals and repeat, violent offenders.

Mr. Compean and Mr. Ramos have vowed to continue their fight to clear
their names. Whether that effort succeeds or not, they will soon be
free to rejoin their families and take up their lives once more.
Their cases were precisely the kind that presidential clemency was
designed to address.